What a great idea for the benefit of our over-75s

The first was the sad but I suppose inevitable account of the demolition work at the site of the former Jersey Pottery to make way for a £14 million housing development. On reading this I immediately had this recollection of a photograph of the then Bailiff Sir Bob Le Masurier swinging this dirty great sledge hammer at a huge earthenware container.

The Pottery’s owners – they must now have reached the fourth generation of the Jones family – used to encourage the thousands of visitors who thronged to the place each year to get rid of loose change by filling these big pots and then, at the end of the season, people like Sir Bob used to revel in the pleasure of smashing them to smithereens for a variety of good causes.

I have never been much of a photographer, not even with one of the modern all singing, all dancing versions of the Brownie box, but as I thought about Sir Bob and his sledge hammer the other evening, I gave thanks that it was never my task to have just that split second to capture a moment that all the modern technology in the world could not possibly re-create.

Then, a day or so later, I read about that splendid suggestion from the Pottery’s design director Manon Jones about organising the occasional outing with a difference for Island residents aged 75 or over who live on their own and would welcome a bit of company with a nice cup of something thrown in.

Manon’s idea is that small groups of pensioners could be picked up once a month and driven to volunteers’ homes where they’d spend a few hours doing exactly what I started this column by doing – reminiscing (or whatever else takes their fancy) – and no doubt enjoying the hospitality of someone’s home in an Island renowned for its generosity.

I have no idea at all which of the four Jones boys Manon has married but it really is nice to see that she has continued the family tradition of doing a bit for those less fortunate started by the lads’ grandparents Clive and Jessie after taking over the Pottery very nearly 60 years ago.

And, with the qualifying age of 75 approaching with a sometimes alarming rapidity, I mentioned the Manon’s idea to Herself who confined her comment to observing that she considered it doubtful that I would find half a dozen others in that age group willing to listen for up to three hours to me banging on about fishing off the back wall of St Catherine’s breakwater, no matter how good the tea and cakes were.

Significantly, I thought, she said nothing to exclude her own attendance from such gatherings in the future.

If I recall it correctly, the first line I ever read that was written by author Bill Bryson was something along the lines of ‘I come from Des Moines, well, somebody had to’ and, in terms of appreciating his work, I have never looked back, so to speak.

Mr Bryson is a proud American from the capital city of the state of Iowa who happens also to love Britain and most things British. His appeal to people like me is that he takes neither himself nor the United States too seriously – a quality which, if adopted by more of his fellow Americans (as their politicians are so fond of calling the electorate, usually just before calling on the Almighty to bless the place as if it were their absolute right) might well make them marginally less unpopular with the remainder of humanity.

I am delighted to say that he also appears to love this small rock and if he ever fulfils his wish of coming back here for a couple of weeks in a self-catering place we may well be reading some of his notes from a very small island.

Not surprisingly, the churlish among us seized upon the man’s comments about being ‘blown away with the place’ and used them to promote their own particular criticism of Jersey in the comment section of thisisjersey.com – the JEP online version.

I liked some of the observations which followed those of the whingers – particularly one from ‘Ashley’ who wrote: ‘Must be something in the water that makes those who drink it for long enough impervious to the beautiful surroundings they’ve been fortunate enough to find themselves among. Jersey is an amazing place, spoilt only by those who are too dumb to realise it. Cheers Bill, glad you liked the place.’

I’ve no idea who you are Ashley but your comment was absolutely spot on. Bill Bryson was, and could well still be, the president of the Campaign for Rural England and I doubt that anyone in that position is going to visit somewhere like Jersey and say nice things about the place without actually meaning it.

Of course there are things here which are less than desirable and over the decades most of them have featured prominently in this column and elsewhere in this newspaper. But that does not mean that our island home can’t be praised – either by Bill Bryson or Ashley. There are far worse places in the world in which to live, that’s for sure.

And finally,

I see that opponents of the Green Street Police Headquarters are still peddling nonsense about ‘what happens when the tunnel’s full of traffic and there an emergency’. Given that the first duty of a police officer is the prevention of crime one would hope that, either on foot or behind the wheel, those answering the emergency are already out there doing just that.